Cranberries to Split After Last Album Featuring Dolores O’Riordan

Cranberries guitarist Noel Hogan said the band would release a final album featuring the voice and lyrics of their late singer Dolores O’Riordan before splitting up.

She was found dead in a London hotel in January. Earlier this month, her death was ruled an accidental drowning in a bathtub due to alcohol intoxication. The band had been working on a new LP in the months leading up to her death.

O'Riordan been pursuing treatment for mental illness, which had begun paying off in her final years, Hogan said. “She was a lot more herself,” he told the Guardian in a new interview. “Especially last year, when we were rehearsing. … They had found the right cocktail of whatever it was she needed to be on. There wasn’t even a case of having to work around it. The hardest thing was her back [injury], because, playing live, she could not move as freely as she used to.”

Hogan reported that the album was “very strong” lyrically. “She always said she found it hard to write songs when she was happy,” he said. “She always said put a bit of misery in her life and it was easier. We will do this album and then that will be it. There is no need to continue.”

Bassist Mike Hogan, Noel's brother, noted that recording sessions hadn't been greatly different to previous ones, since the band had always worked in the studio during the day and left before O'Riordan added her parts overnight.

"We’d pass each other in the corridor,” he said. “Dolores would say, ‘You know that thing you recorded?’ I’d say, ‘You mean the thing that took me five hours to get right?’ She’d say, ‘Yeah, it’s not working!’ This time around, there were nights when we were waiting, looking for her to come in the door.”